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Lower East Side

The Lower East Side (or LES) is best known these days as a place for an exciting night out. Its narrow streets are lined with trendy bars, clubs, restaurants, galleries and music venues, but the neighborhood has a gritty history too. Nowhere else can you find stilettoed club goers waiting in line across the street from a tenement museum, and some vestiges of its immigrant, punk and artistic past remain—the mix adds to the area's vibrant energy.

Neighborhood Tags

In the Neighborhood

Arts & Culture

Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement

Reflecting the diversity and energy of the Lower East Side neighborhood it serves, this multidisciplinary performing-arts space presents edgy works by innovators like modern dance choreographers Twyla Tharp and Martha Graham and avant-garde musicians Laurie Anderson and John Zorn.

Arts & Culture

ABC No Rio

Thanks to a recent appointment of more than $1.6 million in City funding, the creativity continues at this well-loved and environmentally friendly Lower East Side social center, which was first conceived in 1979 and features a darkroom, a computer lab, an art gallery, a library of more than 12,000 'zines culled from the now-defunct Blackout!

Arts & Culture

Landmark Sunshine Cinema

Like a beacon of light on a dingy stretch of Houston Street, the marquee on this popular independent movie house—bright, shining letters that read “SUNSHINE”—draws movie lovers in like moths to a flame.

Film & TV

Metrograph

Hotels

The Gatsby Hotel

This 100 percent non-smoking hotel is conveniently located in SoHo/Lower East Side, within walking distance to all that these hip, artistic neighborhoods have to offer, including world-famous restaurants, nightclubs, art galleries, shopping and more.